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Alcatel-Lucent Directory Server to Enable Service Providers to Offer Personalized Mobile Communication and Web 2.0 Applications to Consumers and Businesses

Posted on: Tuesday, 17 March 2009, 06:24 CDT

PARIS, March 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) today announced the 8661 Directory Server, a high-performance service enablement platform for the creation of personalized Web 2.0 and communications services over wireline and mobile networks - all while enhancing service quality and reducing time to market.

Acting as a centralized real-time storage platform for subscriber data, this directory server, developed by UnboundID Corporation and sold to service providers exclusively by Alcatel-Lucent, is network independent and is able to simultaneously enhance a variety of services including mobile media, entertainment, social networking, advertisement and productivity applications through the centralization of personal, identity, and privacy preference user information - securely and in real time.

For example, with this new product an American visitor to Germany will see Web pages in English -- as the network knows the user's language preference. Or, if the directory server knows that a subscriber is a fan of a particular coffee store's drink, the subscriber could benefit from a personalized service that tracks his location and preference and, when close to a location, receives directions to the closest store along with an electronic coupon.

Consistent with Alcatel-Lucent's approach to application enablement, the directory server features a set of open APIs that the service provider can leverage to develop new services quickly, or can choose to share with third-party application developers. In either case, new end user services are quickly developed and deployed by securely leveraging the Directory Server's open standards and interfaces through a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Software Development Kit.

"Alcatel-Lucent's 8661 Directory Server complements the Alcatel-Lucent Subscriber Data Management portfolio and will allow communication service providers to rapidly create highly personalized applications," said Peter Mottishaw, Principle Analyst, OSS Observer, an Analysys Mason company. "Directory services are becoming increasingly important to the creation and delivery of personalized services and an area where service providers can add value. By bringing to market a high performance Directory Server, Alcatel-Lucent is in a strong position to bridge the subscriber data divide between the network and IT domains."

Where existing solutions must access individual subscriber databases using unique protocols or consolidate subscriber data in batches so at any time the data base can be hours or days old, the directory server addresses all protocols in a single query to retrieve real-time subscriber data. This enhances the end user experience by leveraging in real-time the individual subscriber preferences such as choice of mobile device, preferred language, friends and family distribution lists, highlighting favorite channels, and advertising preferences as they are noted by the system. This real-time functionality also addresses the time-sensitive demands for data critical applications such as customer service, patient care and accounting applications.

"Alcatel-Lucent and UnboundID Corporation collaborated in the development and testing of the this new product to streamline how applications access identity data to deliver personalized services that could not be easily or affordably provided in the past," said Jeff Cortley, President of Alcatel-Lucent's Subscriber Data Management business. "The result of our work will fill an existing marketplace void by delivering an LDAP platform that meets today's carrier-grade, scalability and reliability network requirements while avoiding a monolithic physical data repository. This enables new services that combine real-time user context awareness of the network with the subscriber identity, profile, and service data residing in the IT applications platform."

"We are pleased to be collaborating with Alcatel-Lucent to quickly bring this advanced product to market," said Don Bowen, UnboundID co-founder and Vice President of Marketing. "By centralizing the storage of subscriber identity, persona and privacy preferences, the Directory Server not only reduces complexity while greatly increasing manageability, but also can reduce equipment and data storage by up to 80 percent, dramatically lowering the total cost of ownership."

Bowen noted that this directory server offers a three to five times increase in read and write performance versus competing products.

Alcatel-Lucent is a leader in subscriber data management, providing solutions for data centralization, virtualization and federation to customers worldwide, supporting more than three quarters of a billion subscribers.

For more information on this product please visit: http://www1.alcatel-lucent.com/products/productsummary.jsp?productNumber=tcm% 3A228-1508671635 (Due to the length of this URL, it may be necessary to copy and paste this hyperlink into your Internet browser's URL address field. Remove the space if one exists.)

About UnboundID Corporation

UnboundID Corp. is an emerging leader in the field of next-generation identity management software. The company's Directory Services 2.0 technology offerings help organizations meet the demands of Internet-driven, consumer facing architectures. UnboundID is a privately held company based in Austin, Texas and is funded by Silverton Partners. For more information, visit http://www.unboundid.com.

About Alcatel-Lucent

Alcatel-Lucent (Euronext Paris and NYSE: ALU) is the trusted partner of service providers, enterprises and governments worldwide, providing solutions that to deliver voice, data and video communication services to end-users. A leader in fixed, mobile and converged broadband networking, IP technologies, applications and services, Alcatel-Lucent leverages the unrivalled technical and scientific expertise of Bell Labs, one of the largest innovation powerhouses in the communications industry. With operations in more than 130 countries and the most experienced global services organization in the industry, Alcatel-Lucent is a local partner with a global reach. Alcatel-Lucent achieved revenues of Euro 16.98 billion in 2008 and is incorporated in France, with executive offices located in Paris. For more information, visit Alcatel-Lucent on the Internet: http://www.alcatel-lucent.com

SOURCE Alcatel-Lucent

Source: PR Newswire

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